Veriflux Partners with Indonesian UCO Exporters Association to Enhance Feedstock Traceability

(Veriflux/Biobased Diesel Daily) Veriflux, a leading platform for renewable feedstock traceability, announced a partnership Sept. 21 with the Indonesian Used Cooking Oil Exporters Association (AEMJI).

This collaboration will see AEMJI’s SiMiJEL used cooking oil (UCO) collection mobile application integrated into the Veriflux network, which will empower Veriflux users in the U.S. and European markets to access protected and authenticated UCO-collection data directly from AEMJI members.

In a significant milestone, the first UCO loads traced by SiMiJEL through the Veriflux network are set to be exported from Indonesia in mid- to late September.

To commemorate this achievement, a special event was hosted by AEMJI and Veriflux, which included representatives from the Indonesian government.

Putu Juli Ardika, the Indonesian director general for agriculture-based industry, expressed the support of the ministry of industry for this initiative and commended AEMJI and Veriflux’s efforts to improve the digital traceability of UCO collection in Indonesia.

“We realize that traceability has become the new market standard,” the director general said. “This digital platform will help lead our market towards that goal and ensure Indonesian UCO can serve as a trusted raw material for renewable fuel.”

Setiady Goenawan Teng, AEMJI’s chairman, expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership.

“When we first developed the SiMiJEL mobile application, our vision was clear—to equip AEMJI members with the technology needed to provide the highest level of traceability and transparency in the market,” he said.

“Over the recent months, we have worked closely with the Indonesian government to ensure the broad adoption of this technology,” the AEMJI chairman continued. “By partnering with Veriflux, we are able to ensure the data collected by our members can be authenticated and responsibly shared across the market, in order to demonstrate our members’ compliance with applicable U.S. and EU laws and regulations.”

“We are deeply honored to collaborate with AEMJI on this initiative,” Charles said.

“Partnerships like these are invaluable in bolstering the Veriflux network and furthering our mission of achieving comprehensive, end-to-end traceability for feedstocks utilized in renewable production,” he added. READ MORE

Indonesia will export the first 200t cargo of UCO traced by Simijel through the Veriflux network to Houston this week, stakeholders said when they announced the partnership on 21 September.

Indonesia exported just over 13,000t of UCO to the US during January-July this year, up from near zero in previous years. The US has emerged as an attractive market for Asian UCO since the end of 2022 and has taken significant volumes from China so far this year, as demand and prices have been more robust than in Europe. But meeting the EPA's tracing requirements have been a challenge for many UCO sellers.

The EU is expected to require similar end-to-end traceability once it fully launches its Union Database, which began onboarding system users in January this year. The EU-wide track and trace database was first envisioned as part of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II enacted in 2021 but there is still no legal deadline for its full implementation.

Although digitalised feedstock traceability should allow Indonesian UCO to grow market share overseas, Indonesia's industry ministry sees exporting UCO as a "temporary solution" to ensure it is removed from the food supply chain, Agro Industry director-general Putu Juli Ardika said at the launch. In the longer term his industry ministry fully supports that Indonesian UCO should be used in domestic renewable fuel production, he added. READ MORE